As you know, Iran’s government has a history of consistently disregarding the international community’s warnings to halt support for international terrorism and abandon their nuclear program. Although Iranian President Hassan Rowhani is seen by some as a moderate who may provide an opportunity to advance negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear programs, I remain worried about Rowhani’s past statements expressing support for Iran’s nuclear programs. I also remain concerned that, despite the new presidency, power resides largely with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has repeatedly demonstrated resistance to any slowdown of Iran’s nuclear activities.

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is a serious threat to the Middle East’s stability and to our national security. Iran has repeatedly refused to abide by international agreements that require inspection of nuclear facilities, details of facility designs, acquisition, and production and management of nuclear materials. Diplomacy certainly sounds like the best option, but I am concerned that negotiations relied too heavily on statements by Iranian leaders without considering them in the broader context of Iran’s past history of repeated resistance in ending their nuclear programs.

I cosponsored and supported the passage of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, which requires Congressional procedural review and oversight of any final agreement related to Iran’s nuclear program. Most importantly, the bill prevents the administration from providing any further sanctions relief to Iran until Congress has an opportunity to weigh in and provide its views to the American people. This bill was signed into law on May 22, 2015.

Unfortunately, the administration’s recent announcement of reaching a nuclear agreement with Iran marks a dangerous step forward in the advancement of Iran’s illicit nuclear program and confirms that the president was desperate to get a deal with Iran at any price. This is a bad deal for the United States and one that will embolden our adversaries and jeopardize the security of our allies. The stated goal of the negotiations was to ensure Iran never develops the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, yet the president agreed to a deal that does the opposite.

I appreciate your thoughts on this issue and will keep them in mind as Congress reviews and votes upon the final deal as agreed upon amongst the P5+1 and Iran.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I look forward to continuing our conversation on Facebook ( www.facebook.com/SenatorBlunt ) and Twitter ( www.twitter.com/RoyBlunt ) about the important issues facing Missouri and the country. I also encourage you to visit my website ( blunt.senate.gov ) to learn more about where I stand on the issues and sign-up for my e-newsletter.

Over the last couple of days, we have become aware of legislation that will be voted on by Congress, as soon as today, that was created to take away the labor rights of every VA employee in the system. That’s more than 300,000 employees that would be employed on an ‘at will’ basis, effectively stripping them of their ability to protect themselves from management.

Right now a majority of Republican congress members are selling this push as an effort towards VA accountability but we see it for what it really is: One giant step towards defunding and privatizing the VA. We aren’t going to stand by and let that happen. We see the VA as a vitally important institution in need of real accountability. The kind of accountability where management isn’t incentivized to cut costs and healthcare by receiving bonuses at the end of the year. The kind of accountability where hardworking everyday employees aren’t thrown under the bus for the actions of an executive leadership that operates under the cover of darkness and a Congress that isn’t willing to pay the true costs of war.

Call your Congress member at 855-976-5397 and tell them to vote against H.R.1994 and S.1082

The truth is that war is expensive. It’s fundamentally ‘expensive’ in the loss of lives, livelihoods, and the trauma inflicted on the people of occupied countries. It’s expensive in the money poured into no-bid military contracts with little oversight. And it’s expensive to provide healthcare for returning veterans and servicemembers. The VA is dealing with a population of over 2.8 million veterans returning from these recent wars and, instead of dismantling it, we want to see it become a leader in high quality healthcare for our community. But it will come at a cost. We have seen the effects of privatization in the military and in more and more institutions in our country and we have no illusions of what the end result will be if efforts like this are successful. It will mean substandard care, with even less opportunity for oversight.

Join us in saying NO to this push to dismantle the VA. Call your Lawmakers at 855-976-5397

The VA isn’t our only focus but it is a hot button issue right now and will likely continue to be in domestic politics as we move into the election season. In the next couple days, we will tell you more about our push to resist US militarism overseas but in the meanwhile we wanted to bring this to your attention. We are glad to know that we have your support in ensuring that our community is given the tools and resources needed to heal and in continuing to resist the militarism that is embedded in our country.

]]>https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/stop-congress-from-defunding-the-va-at-this-junction/feed/0eslkevinIraq Veterans Against the WarSupport Our Work: Donate NowDonate Now“You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” Somali-British poet Warsan Shirehttps://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/you-have-to-understand-that-no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-water-is-safer-than-the-land-somali-british-poet-warsan-shire/
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/you-have-to-understand-that-no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-water-is-safer-than-the-land-somali-british-poet-warsan-shire/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 20:03:47 +0000http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/?p=41220Continue reading →]]>

“You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.” Somali-British poet Warsan Shire

“The sea went black,” said Doaa. “I heard people screaming, and water crashing. I felt like I was going to drown.”

When their searchlights found her, the crew of the merchant vessel were astonished. Doaa, a thin, dehydrated 19-year old girl, was floating precariously on a child’s life ring, clutching two babies whose mothers had drowned in the dark water of the Mediterranean Sea.

“Save her,” the exhausted mother of the 18-month-old baby told her, “I will not survive.” Then she gave up and let the sea take her life.

Doaa was one of just eleven survivors of that trip but she is among thousands of asylum-seekers, mainly from Syria, who have made the harrowing journey across the sea seeking refuge from conflict.

Her fierce spirit of survival — and her courage to save others even though she herself couldn’t swim — inspires me. If she inspires you too, please know that what happens next for Doaa and others like her might be in your hands right now.

With the support of generous donors, UN Refugee Agency teams are working with overwhelmed local authorities in Greece to help provide lifesaving assistance, medical and shelter facilities and protection services to the thousands of refugees who have made the harrowing journey across the sea. But as more and more people flee your support is needed now to scale up and reach as many people as possible.

Thank you for your continued support of families in desperate situations — your commitment is hope for people like Doaa and so many more around the world.

Sincerely,

Anne-Marie Grey
Executive Director and CEO
USA for UNHCR

]]>https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/you-have-to-understand-that-no-one-puts-their-children-in-a-boat-unless-the-water-is-safer-than-the-land-somali-british-poet-warsan-shire/feed/0eslkevinWomen from the Mediterranean Management at Bagan Hotel River View in Myanmar responds to international campaign with new rights abuseshttps://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/management-at-bagan-hotel-river-view-in-myanmar-responds-to-international-campaign-with-new-rights-abuses/
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/management-at-bagan-hotel-river-view-in-myanmar-responds-to-international-campaign-with-new-rights-abuses/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 20:00:57 +0000http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/?p=41218Continue reading →]]>

In response to theinternational campaignlaunched by the IUF to defend basic trade union rights at the upscale Bagan Hotel River View in Myanmar (Burma), management is now screening job applicants to identify potential union supporters. Applicants are asked if they know anyone who is a union member and are warned that if they join the union they will fail their probation. Additionally, management attempted to force out older workers active in the union by ordering workers over 60 to resign within 24 hours.

Earlier this year, management attempted to crush the legally registered trade union by compelling the elected officers to sign resignation letters in a closed meeting guarded by hotel security. Five leaders who refused were instantly terminated. The local authorities have twice issued reinstatement orders, but management has only agreed to formally reinstate them while forbidding them access to their jobs and their members at the hotel. The hotel plans to appeal the reinstatement orders, and the absurd legal system gives them up to two years to appeal!

You can support this important struggle for basic trade union rights for hotel workers in Myanmar – CLICK HERE to send a message to the hotel’s owners and management now, demanding they immediately reinstate the trade union leaders to their jobs, cease screening new applicants for pro-union sympathies and fully respect trade union rights.

]]>https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/management-at-bagan-hotel-river-view-in-myanmar-responds-to-international-campaign-with-new-rights-abuses/feed/0eslkevinParadise Burning Why We All Need to Learn the Word “Anthropogenic”: The wettest rainforest in the continental United States had gone up in flames and the smoke was so thick, so blanketing, that you could see it miles awayhttps://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/paradise-burning-why-we-all-need-to-learn-the-word-anthropogenic-the-wettest-rainforest-in-the-continental-united-states-had-gone-up-in-flames-and-the-smoke-was-so-thick-so-blanke/
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/paradise-burning-why-we-all-need-to-learn-the-word-anthropogenic-the-wettest-rainforest-in-the-continental-united-states-had-gone-up-in-flames-and-the-smoke-was-so-thick-so-blanke/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 19:59:04 +0000http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/?p=41215Continue reading →]]>Tomgram: Subhankar Banerjee, Fire at World’s End

Normally, Americans love breaking records. (“We’re number one! We’re number one!”) But the latest records to come out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration should make anyone’s heart sink. Here’s how the World Meteorological Societyput the news in a recent press release: “The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for January to June 2015, as well as for the month of June, was the hottest such period on record.” June itself was a global record-setter for warmth, as had been May and March in this thermometer-busting year, and February might also have squeaked into the number-one spot in recorded history. If so, four of the six months of this year were uniquely, grimly warm. And batten down the hatches since this is now officially an El Niño year in which surface water temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean are heating up significantly, possibly to historic levels, and global weather and storm patterns could be affected in major ways.

Where’s that (discredited) “pause” in global warming now that we need it? In the American West, still gripped by a devastating drought, wildfires are raging from California to Western Canada toAlaska. Hundreds of those Canadian wildfires have been burning away and, as desperate people leave the fire areas, a new phrase has entered our language: “wildfire refugees.” Here are two more words that may become more commonplace in the future: “fleeing” (as in “from hotels and campgrounds”) and — in one of our great national parks, Glacier in Montana, part of which is now ablaze — “evacuation.”

TomDispatch regular and award-winning photographer Subhankar Banerjee lives on the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington and has recently found himself on the frontlines of the present wildfire season and of climate change. In his latest piece, he takes us into perhaps the single place least likely to be ablaze in America and oh yes, if you haven’t already guessed, it’s on fire. Welcome to — if you’ll excuse my appropriation of a classic phrase from our past — the new world. Tom

The wettest rainforest in the continental United States had gone up in flames and the smoke was so thick, so blanketing, that you could see it miles away. Deep in Washington’s Olympic National Park, the aptly named Paradise Fire, undaunted by the dampness of it all, was eating the forest alive and destroying an ecological Eden. In this season of drought across the West, there have been far bigger blazes but none quite so symbolic or offering quite such grim news. It isn’t the size of the fire (though it is the largest in the park’s history), nor its intensity. It’s something else entirely — the fact that it shouldn’t have been burning at all. When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn.

And here’s the thing: the Olympic Peninsula is my home. Its destruction is my personal nightmare and I couldn’t stay away.

Senate Recognizes Whistleblower Appreciation Day

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. July 30, 2015. Today, by a unanimous resolution the U.S. Senate declared July 30th as “National Whistleblower Appreciation Day.” The resolution comes on the anniversary of the first ever whistleblower protection law, enacted by the Continental Congress 237 years ago, at the height of the American Revolution.

The Continental Congress’s whistleblower law, enacted on July 30, 1778, read as follows:

“That it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other inhabitants thereof, to give the earliest information to Congress or any other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any persons in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge.”

“Recognizing our Founding Fathers’ strong support for whistleblower is an essential first step in changing the workplace culture that holds whistleblowers in distain and subjects them to illegal retaliation,” said Stephen M. Kohn, the Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center.

“We commend the Senate for recognizing the historic actions taken by our Founding Fathers, and call upon the House of Representatives and the President to join in this important celebration,” Kohn added.

The New York Times has issued multiple corrections and faced blistering criticism from its public editor over a botched story about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Here’s what we still don’t know:http://mm4a.org/1fEzUyl

A group trying to smear Planned Parenthood released another deceptively edited video this week. Here are 7 things you need to know about it: http://mm4a.org/1U4z2T5

]]>https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/botched-ny-times-story-risks-the-papers-fundamental-credibility-right-wing-media-have-taken-over-the-gop-and-more/feed/0eslkevinMedia Matters for America - Take ActionNew York TimesRepublicans and Fox News“Bad Analogies Abounding on Iran Deal” & the ” Unreality of the Iran-Nuke Fight”https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/41208/
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/41208/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 19:51:40 +0000http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/?p=41208Continue reading →]]>Note: The following articles were chosen for the various kinds of light they shed on the nuclear agreement signed by the US and its negotiating partners with Iran, and by the efforts of critics in the US Congress to torpedo the agreement. Thanks to Rusti Eisenberg and an anonymous reader for suggesting articles that are included here.

Normally these occasional lists touch on a wider range of war-and-peace-related foreign policy issues; suggestions can be sent to jimobrien48@gmail.com.

]]>https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/41208/feed/0eslkevinU.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) is a vital tool but a series of calculated political decisions in the 2015 TIP Report, released Monday, allowed some countries to rise and others to fall based not a strict-but-fair assessment of their anti-trafficking efforts, but on the political priorities of the Obama Administrationhttps://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/u-s-state-departments-trafficking-in-persons-report-tip-report-is-a-vital-tool-but-a-series-of-calculated-political-decisions-in-the-2015-tip-report-released-monday-allowed-some-countrie/
https://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2015/07/31/u-s-state-departments-trafficking-in-persons-report-tip-report-is-a-vital-tool-but-a-series-of-calculated-political-decisions-in-the-2015-tip-report-released-monday-allowed-some-countrie/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 19:48:42 +0000http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/?p=41205Continue reading →]]>

Dear Kevin,

The U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) is a vital tool with which human rights organizations, unions, and others committed to the fight against human trafficking can hold governments accountable for their efforts to prevent this egregious crime, protect its victims and prosecute the offenders. Unfortunately, a series of calculated political decisions in the 2015 TIP Report, released Monday, allowed some countries to rise and others to fall based not a strict-but-fair assessment of their anti-trafficking efforts, but on the political priorities of the Obama Administration.

The reasoning behind these baffling upgrades is often paper thin, focusing on intentions or cosmetic actions without demanding actual change from the governments in question. The lack of balance makes it difficult to discern what countries are actually assessed on, and sends a troubling message that, even under an Administration that has made several laudable commitments to ending human trafficking, when the chips are down, trade and security interests trump human rights. Ultimately, it also undermines the integrity of the TIP report itself. By trading accuracy for short-term expediency, the State Department has tarnished the image of the report and made it less effective as an advocacy tool.

We can’t comment on all the country rankings that anti-trafficking groups have questioned, but based on our work in Malaysia and Uzbekistan, we know that the ranking failed to remotely reflect reality. Read our latest blog to learn more.

United For Peace and Justice is taking part in Peace and Planet Summer by participating in commemorations of the 70th anniversaries of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and supporting the Iran Nuclear Accords. We’re also re-launching the UFPJ newsletter, which we’re inviting you to be a part of. Please read more about each of these endeavors in our brief below.

August is Nuclear Free Future Month

Please post your event or action in support of the abolition of all nuclear weapons on our international events calendar at nuclearfreefuture.org.

Find an event near you, using our search function. Commemorations of all kinds will be taking place around the world throughout the month of August. Forty-seven eventshave already been posted and we’re looking forward to seeing yours added to the list.

Sign and Share Our Petition to Support the Iran Deal and Prevent War

Finally, the Administration has come up with a diplomatic solution that will strengthen international oversight to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful.

We are excited about starting our Newsletter again to feature the hard work of UFPJ’s hundreds of member groups. We all know that local activism can feel lonely, and we are not always aware that we are all part of a larger movement, all working toward the greater goal of peace and justice and a better tomorrow. Peace groups are persevering all across the country. We want to hear from you and get the news out about your work!

Make Sure Your Organization’s Leadership is Getting Our Messages

In the twelve years since UFPJ was founded in 2003, groups have changed and re-formed, and leadership has transitioned. Some of the contact information we have for your group may be outdated.

All we are saying is give peace a chance! If you appreciate receiving timely action alerts like this,please make a donation to UFPJso that we can continue to keep our member groups and dedicated activists linked together for effective action and impact.